Life’s Impetus Is Toward Growth
Vernon Baker was a tremendous hero in World War II, but the highest honor, the Congressional Medal of Honor, was denied him because of his skin color. It was a loss for Baker, and he could have grown bitter and angry over the years. Instead, he has lived a good, full life.
Louise Stamper struggles physically every day with rheumatoid arthritis, an illness that twists and swells her limbs in painful ways. Stamper could have used the loss of her physical ability as an excuse to be filled with rage - toward herself, toward others, toward God. Instead, Stamper became a community volunteer in her West Central neighborhood. Her work and energy translated into a basketball team where gang wannabes stay on the basketball courts and out of criminal courts.
Memorial Day is traditionally a day to remember those who have passed on - family members, friends, colleagues. People visit gravesites, lay down flowers, reminisce. Ceremonies are held in cemeteries to honor the dead among us. It’s a day in which we remember those we’ve lost.
So it seems an appropriate day to think about the lesser losses we deal with in life. This isn’t something people talk about much, but we face losses of all kinds on a constant basis. Men and women of middle age must mourn the loss of early dreams; older people, the loss of their physical prowess and the beginning of all those agerelated ailments.
In a sports game, only one team wins. In a workplace, not everyone can get that great promotion. And daily, we must give up fantasies - the ideal parents, the grateful children, the perfect spouse. These are losses, and as the years add up, so does the accretion of these “lesser deaths.”
But Memorial Day is also a day of new beginnings. The official start of the gardening season. The kick-off to summer. Dust off those white shoes and fire up the barbecue! So it’s also a time to reflect on how loss leads to new growth, if a person allows beginnings to flourish from endings.
Vernon Baker did. And ultimately, he was rewarded with the Medal of Honor. Louise Stamper did. And her basketball team project might inspire similar programs nationally. Baker and Stamper are local heroes, but the way we begin anew after loss can bring out heroism in everyone.
One elderly couple we knew loved to travel and do travelogues at nursing homes. They were both wracked with ailments. But they didn’t let that stop them. Every morning, they made a list of those ailments and then tore the list up. They realized that the next morning, they’d have an entirely new list of ailments. They couldn’t let that stop them from pursuing their passion.
An older man profiled in Psychology Today several years ago loved to garden. As he aged, and his eyesight and endurance diminished, he simply downsized his garden. He went from tending a huge plot of land to caring for flowers in a window box.
Life’s big and little losses provide us the opportunity to choose. Will these losses make us stronger or weaker? Bitter or appreciative? That’s the choice. And something to ponder this glorious day of memorials.
, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rebecca Nappi/For the editorial board